A Book About Lawyers Part 22

"Bold and erect the Caledonian stood; Old was his mutton, and his claret good.

'Let him drink port,' an English statesman cried: He drunk the poison and his spirit died."

Unlike his father, who never sinned against moderation in his cups, Charles Yorke was a deep drinker as well as a gourmand. Hardwicke's successor, Lord Northington, was the first of a line of port-wine-drinking judges that may at the present time be fairly said to have come to an end--although a few reverend fathers of the law yet remain, who drink with relish the Methuen drink when age has deprived it of body and strength. Until Robert Henley held the seals, Chancellors continued to hold after-dinner sittings in the Court of Chancery on certain days of the week throughout term. Hardwicke, throughout his long official career, sat on the evenings of Wednesdays and Fridays hearing causes, while men of pleasure were fuddling themselves with fruity vintages. Lord Northington, however, prevailed on George III. to let him discontinue these evening attendances in court. "But why," asked the monarch, "do you wish for a change?" "Sir," the Chancellor answered, with delightful frankness, "I want the change in order that I may finish my bottle of port at my ease; and your majesty, in your parental care for the happiness of your subjects, will, I trust, think this a sufficient reason." Of course the king's laughter ended in a favorable answer to the pet.i.tion for reform, and from that time the Chancellor's evening sittings were discontinued. But ere he died, the jovial Chancellor paid the penalty which port exacts from all her fervent worshippers, and he suffered the acutest pangs of gout. It is recorded that as he limped from the woolsack to the bar of the House of Lords, he once muttered to a young peer, who watched his distress with evident sympathy--"Ah, my young friend, if I had known that these legs would one day carry a Chancellor, I would have taken better care of them when I was at your age." Unto this had come the handsome legs of young Counsellor Henley, who, in his dancing days, stepped minuets to the enthusiastic admiration of the _belles_ of Bath.

Some light is thrown on the manners of lawyers in the eighteenth century by an order made by the authorities of Barnard's Inn, who, in November, 1706, named two quarts as the allowance of wine to be given to each mess of four men by two gentlemen on going through the ceremony of 'initiation.' Of course, this amount of wine was an 'extra' allowance, in addition to the ale and sherry a.s.signed to members by the regular dietary of the house. Even Sheridan, who boasted that he could drink any _given_ quant.i.ty of wine, would have thought twice before he drank so large a given quant.i.ty, in addition to a liberal allowance of stimulant.

Anyhow, the quant.i.ty was fixed--a fact that would have elicited an expression of approval from Chief Baron Thompson, who, loving port wine wisely, though too well, expressed at the same time his concurrence with the words, and his dissent from the opinion of a barrister, who observed--"I hold, my lord, that after a good dinner a certain quant.i.ty of wine does no harm." With a smile, the Chief Baron rejoined--"True, sir; it is the _uncertain_ quant.i.ty that does the mischief."

The most temperate of the eighteenth-century Chancellors was Lord Camden, who required no more generous beverage than sound malt liquor, as he candidly declared, in a letter to the Duke of Grafton, wherein he says--"I am, thank G.o.d, remarkably well, but your grace must not seduce me into my former intemperance. A plain dish and a draught of porter (which last is indispensable), are the very extent of my luxury." For porter, Edward Thurlow, in his student days, had high respect and keen relish; but in his mature years, as well as still older age, full-bodied port was his favorite drink, and under its influence were seen to the best advantage those colloquial powers which caused Samuel Johnson to exclaim--"Depend upon it, sir, it is when you come close to a man in conversation that you discover what his real abilities are; to make a speech in a public a.s.sembly is a knack. Now, I honor Thurlow, sir; Thurlow is a fine fellow: he fairly puts his mind to yours." Of Thurlow, when he had mounted the woolsack, Johnson also observed--"I would prepare myself for no man in England but Lord Thurlow. When I am to meet him, I would wish to know a day before." From the many stories told of Thurlow and ebriosity, one may be here taken and brought under the reader's notice--not because it has wit or humor to recommend it, but because it presents the Chancellor in company with another port-loving lawyer, William Pitt, from whose fame, by-the-by, Lord Stanhope has recently removed the old disfiguring imputations of sottishness. "Returning," says Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, a poor authority, but piquant gossip-monger, "by way of frolic, very late at night, on horseback, to Wimbledon, from Addis...o...b.., the seat of Mr. Jenkinson, near Croydon, where the party had dined, Lord Thurlow, the Chancellor, Pitt, and Dundas, found the turnpike gate, situate between Tooting and Streatham, thrown open. Being elevated above their usual prudence, and having no servant near them, they pa.s.sed through the gate at a brisk pace, without stopping to pay the toll, regardless of the remonstrances and threats of the turnpike man, who running after them, and believing them to belong to some highwaymen who had recently committed some depredation on that road, discharged the contents of his blunderbuss at their backs. Happily he did no injury."

Throughout their long lives the brothers Scott were steady, and, according to the rules of the present day, inordinate drinkers of port wine. As a young barrister, John Scott could carry more port with decorum than any other man of his inn; and in the days when he is generally supposed to have lived on sprats and table-beer, he seldom pa.s.sed twenty-four hours without a bottle of his favorite wine.

Prudence, however, made him careful to avoid intoxication, and when he found that a friendship often betrayed him into what he thought excessive drinking, he withdrew from the dangerous connexion. "I see your friend Bowes very often," he wrote in May, 1778, a time when Mr.

Bowes was his most valuable client; "but I dare not dine with him above once in three months, as there is no getting away before midnight; and, indeed, one is sure to be in a condition in which no man would wish to be in the streets at any other season." Of the quant.i.ties imbibed at these three-monthly dinners, an estimate may be formed from the following story. Bringing from Oxford to London that fine sense of the merits of port wine which characterized the thorough Oxonion of a century since, William Scott made it for some years a rule to dine with his brother John on the first day of term at a tavern hard by the Temple; and on these occasions the brothers used to make away with bottle after bottle not less to the astonishment than the approval of the waiters who served them. Before the decay of his faculties, Lord Stowell was recalling these terminal dinners to his son-in-law, Lord Sidmouth, when the latter observed, "You drank some wine together, I dare say?" Lord Stowell, modestly, "Yes, we drank some wine."

Son-in-law, inquisitively, "Two bottles?" Lord Stowell, quickly putting away the imputation of such abstemiousness, "More than that."

Son-in-law, smiling, "What, three bottles?" Lord Stowell, "More."

Son-in-law, opening his eyes with astonishment, "By Jove, sir, you don't mean to say that you took four bottles?" Lord Stowell, beginning to feel ashamed of himself, "More; I mean to say we had more. Now don't ask any more questions."

Whilst Lord Stowell, smarting under the domestic misery of which his foolish marriage with the Dowager Marchioness of Sligo was fruitful, sought comfort and forgetfulness in the cellar of the Middle Temple, Lord Eldon drained magnums of Newcastle port at his own table. Populous with wealthy merchants, and surrounded by an opulent aristocracy, Newcastle had used the advantages given her by a large export trade with Portugal to draw to her cellars such superb port wine as could be found in no other town in the United Kingdom; and to the last the Tory Chancellor used to get his port from the canny capital of Northumbria.

Just three weeks before his death, the veteran lawyer, sitting in his easy-chair and recalling his early triumphs, preluded an account of the great leading case, "Akroyd _v._ Smithson," by saying to his listener, "Come, Farrer, help yourself to a gla.s.s of Newcastle port, and help me to a little." But though he asked for a little, the old earl, according to his wont, drank much before he was raised from his chair and led to his sleeping-room. It is on record, and is moreover supported by unexceptionable evidence, that in his extreme old age, whilst he was completely laid upon the shelf, and almost down to the day of his death, which occurred in his eighty-seventh year, Lord Eldon never drank less than three pints of port daily with or after his dinner.

Of eminent lawyers who were steady port-wine drinkers, Baron Platt--the amiable and popular judge who died in 1862, aged seventy-two years--may be regarded as one of the last. Of him it is recorded that in early manhood he was so completely prostrated by severe illness that beholders judged him to be actually dead. Standing over his silent body shortly before the arrival of the undertaker, two of his friends concurred in giving utterance to the sentiment: "Ah, poor dear fellow, we shall never drink a gla.s.s of wine with him again;" when, to their momentary alarm and subsequent delight, the dead man interposed with a faint a.s.sumption of jocularity, "But you will though, and a good many too, I hope." When the undertaker called he was sent away a genuinely sorrowful man; and the young lawyer, who was 'not dead yet,' lived to old age and good purpose.

[36] In old Sir Herbert's later days it was a mere pleasantry, or bold figure of speech to say that his court had risen, for he used to be lifted from his chair and carried bodily from the chamber of justice by two brawny footmen. Of course, as soon as the judge was about to be elevated by his bearers, the bar rose; and also as a matter of course the bar continued to stand until the strong porters had conveyed their weighty and venerable burden along the platform behind one of the rows of advocates and out of sight. As the _trio_ worked their laborious way along the platform, there seemed to be some danger that they might blunder and fall through one of the windows into the s.p.a.ce behind the court; and at a time when Sir Herbert and Dr. ---- were at open variance, that waspish advocate had on one occasion the bad taste to keep his seat at the rising of the court, and with characteristic malevolence of expression to say to the footmen, "Mind, my men, and take care of that judge of yours--or, by Jove, you'll pitch him out of the window." It is needless to say that this brutal speech did not raise the speaker in the opinion of the hearers.

CHAPTER XLVII.

LAW AND LITERATURE.

At the present time, when three out of every five journalists attached to our chief London newspapers are Inns-of-Court men; when many of our able and successful advocates are known to ply their pens in organs of periodical literature as regularly as they raise their voices in courts of justice; and when the young Templar, who has borne away the first honors of his university, deems himself the object of a compliment on receiving an invitation to contribute to the columns of a leading review or daily journal--it is difficult to believe that strong men are still amongst us who can remember the days when it was the fashion of the bar to disdain law-students who were suspected of 'writing for hire' and barristers who 'reported for the papers.' Throughout the opening years of the present century, and even much later, it was almost universally held on the circuits and in Westminster Hall, that Inns-of-Court men lowered the dignity of their order by following those literary avocations by which some of the brightest ornaments of the law supported themselves at the outset of their professional careers. Notwithstanding this prejudice, a few wearers of the long robe, daring by nature, or rendered bold by necessity, persisted in 'maintaining a connexion with the press, whilst they sought briefs on the circuit, or waited for clients in their chambers. Such men as Sergeant Spankie and Lord Campbell, as Master Stephen and Mr. Justice Talfourd, were reporters for the press whilst they kept terms; and no sooner had Henry Brougham's eloquence charmed the public, than it was whispered that for years his pen, no less ready than his tongue, had found constant employment in organs of political intelligence.

But though such men were known to exist, they were regarded as the 'black sheep' of the bar by a great majority of their profession. It is not improbable that this prejudice against gownsmen on the press was palliated by circ.u.mstances that no longer exist. When political writers were very generally regarded as dangerous members of society, and when conductors of respectable newspapers were hara.s.sed with vexatious prosecutions and heavy punishments for acts of trivial inadvertence, or for purely imaginary offences, the average journalist was in many respects inferior to the average journalist working under the present more favorable circ.u.mstances. Men of culture, honest purpose, and fine feeling were slow to enrol themselves members of a despised and proscribed fraternity; and in the dearth of educated gentlemen ready to accept literary employment, the task of writing for the public papers too frequently devolved upon very unscrupulous persons, who rendered their calling as odious as themselves. A shackled and persecuted press is always a licentious and venal press; and before legislation endowed English journalism with a certain measure of freedom and security, it was seldom manly and was often corrupt. It is therefore probable that our grandfathers had some show of reason for their dislike of contributors to anonymous literature. At the bar men of unquestionable amiability and enlightenment were often the loudest to express this aversion for their scribbling brethren. It was said that the scribblers were seldom gentlemen in temper; and that they never hesitated to puff themselves in their papers. These considerations so far influenced Mr.

Justice Lawrence that, though he was a model of judicial suavity to all other members of the bar, he could never bring himself to be barely civil to advocates known to be 'upon the press.'

At Lincoln's Inn this strong feeling against journalists found vent in a resolution, framed in reference to a particular person, which would have shut out journalists from the Society. It had long been understood that no student could be called to the bar _whilst_ he was acting as a reporter in the gallery of either house; but the new decision of the benchers would have destroyed the ancient connexion of the legal profession and literary calling. Strange to say this illiberal measure was the work of two benchers who, notwithstanding their patrician descent and a.s.sociations, were vehement a.s.serters of liberal principles.

Mr. Clifford--'O.P.' Clifford--was its proposer and Erskine was its seconder. Fortunately the person who was the immediate object of its provisions pet.i.tioned the House of Commons upon the subject, and the consequent debate in the Lower House decided the benchers to withdraw from their false position; and since their silent retreat no attempt has been made by any of the four honorable societies to affix an undeserved stigma on the followers of a serviceable art. Upon the whole the literary calling gained much from the discreditable action of Lincoln's Inn; for the speech in which Sheridan covered with derision this attempt to brand parliamentary reporters as unfit to a.s.sociate with members of the bar, and the address in which Mr. Stephen, with manly reference to his own early experiences, warmly censured the conduct of the society of which he was himself a member, caused many persons to form a new and juster estimate of the working members of the London press. Having alluded to Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke, who had both acted as parliamentary reporters, Sheridan stated that no less than twenty-three graduates of universities were then engaged as reporters of the proceedings of the house.

The close connexion which for centuries has existed between men of law and men of letters is ill.u.s.trated on the one hand by a long succession of eminent lawyers who have added to the l.u.s.tre of professional honors the no less bright distinctions of literary achievements or friendships, and on the other hand by the long line of able writers who either enrolled themselves amongst the students of the law, or resided in the Inns of Court, or cherished with a.s.siduous care the friendly regard of famous judges. Indeed, since the days of Chancellor de Bury, who wrote the 'Philobiblon,' there have been few Chancellors to whom literature is not in some way indebted; and the few Keepers of the Seal who neither cared for letters nor cultivated the society of students, are amongst the judges whose names most Englishmen would gladly erase from the history of their country. Jeffreys and Macclesfield represent the unlettered Chancellors; More and Bacon the lettered. Fortescue's 'De Laudibus' is a book for every reader. To Chancellor Warham, Erasmus--a scholar not given to distribute praise carelessly--dedicated his 'St.

Jerom,' with cordial eulogy. Wolsey was a patron of letters. More may be said to have revived, if he did not create, the literary taste of his contemporaries, and to have transplanted the novel to English soil.

Equally diligent as a writer and a collector of books, Gardyner spent his happiest moments at his desk, or over the folios of the magnificent library which was destroyed by Wyat's insurgents. Christopher Hatton was a dramatic author. To one person who can describe with any approach to accuracy Edward Hyde's conduct in the Court of Chancery, there are twenty who have studied Clarendon's 'Rebellion.' At the present date Hale's books are better known than his judgments, though his conduct towards the witches of Bury St. Edmunds conferred an unenviable fame on his judicial career. By timely a.s.sistance rendered to Burnet, Lord Nottingham did something to atone for his brutality towards Milton, whom, at an earlier period of his career, he had declared worthy of a felon's death, for having been Cromwell's Latin secretary. Lord Keeper North wrote upon 'Music;' and to his brother Roger literature is indebted for the best biographies composed by any writer of his period.

In his boyhood Somers was a poet; in his maturer years the friend of poets. The friend of Prior and Gay, Arbuthnot and Pope, Lord Chancellor Harcourt, wrote verses of more than ordinary merit, and alike in periods of official triumph and in times of retirement valued the friendship of men of wit above the many successes of his public career. Lord Chancellor King, author of 'Const.i.tution and Discipline of the Primitive Church,' was John Locke's dutiful nephew and favorite companion. King's immediate successor was extolled by Pope in the lines,

O teach us, Talbot! thou'rt unspoil'd by wealth, That secret rare, between the extremes to move, Of mad good-nature and of mean self-love.

Who is it copies Talbot's better part, To ease th' oppress'd, and raise the sinking heart?

But Talbot's fairest eulogy was penned by his son's tutor, Alexander Thomson--a poet who had no reason to feel grat.i.tude to Talbot's official successor. Ere he thoroughly resolved to devote himself to law, the cold and formal Hardwicke had cherished a feeble ambition for literary distinction; and under its influence he wrote a paper that appeared in the _Spectator_. Blackstone's entrance at the Temple occasioned his metrical 'Farewell' to his muse. In his undergraduate days at Cambridge Lord Chancellor Charles Yorke was a chief contributor to the 'Athenian Letters,' and it would have been well for him had he in after-life given to letters a portion of the time which he sacrificed to ambition.

Thurlow's churlishness and overbearing temper are at this date trifling matters in comparison with his friendship for Cowper and Samuel Johnson, and his kindly aid to George Crabbe. Even more than for the wisdom of his judgments Mansfield is remembered for his intimacy with 'the wits,'

and his close friendship with that chief of them all, who exclaimed, "How sweet an Ovid, Murray, was our boast," and in honor of that "Sweet Ovid" penned the lines,

"Graced as thou art, with all the power of words, So known, so honored in the House of Lords"--

verses deliciously ridiculed by the parodist who wrote,

"Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks: And he has chambers in the King's Bench walks."

As an atonement for many defects, Alexander Wedderburn had one virtue--an honest respect for letters that made him in opening manhood seek the friendship of Hume, at a later date solicit a pension for Dr.

Johnson, and after his elevation to the woolsack overwhelm Gibbon with hospitable civilities. Eldon was an Oxford Essayist in his young, the compiler of 'The Anecdote Book' in his old days; and though he cannot be commended for literary tastes, or sympathy with men of letters, he was one of the many great lawyers who found pleasure in the conversation of Samuel Johnson. Unlike his brother, Lord Stowell clung fast to his literary friendships, as 'Dr. Scott of the Commons' priding himself more on his membership in the Literary Club than on his standing in the Prerogative Court; and as Lord Stowell evincing cordial respect for the successors of Reynolds and Malone, even when love of money had taken firm hold of his enfeebled mind. Archdeacon Paley's London residence was in Edward Law's house in Bloomsbury Square. In Erskine literary ambition was so strong that, not content with the fame brought to him by excellent _vers de societe_, he took pen in hand when he resigned the seals, and--more to the delight of his enemies than the satisfaction of his friends--wrote a novel, which neither became, nor deserved to be, permanently successful. With similar zeal and greater ability the literary reputation of the bar has been maintained by Lord Denman, who was an industrious _litterateur_ whilst he was working his way up at the bar; by Sir John Taylor Coleridge, whose services to the _Quarterly Review_ are an affair of literary history; by Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, who, having reported in the gallery, lived to lake part in the debates of the House of Commons, and who, from the date of his first engagement on the _Times_ till the sad morning when "G.o.d's finger touched him,"

while he sat upon the bench, never altogether relinquished those literary pursuits, in which he earned well-merited honor; by Lord Macaulay, whose connexion with the legal profession is almost lost sight of in the brilliance of his literary renown; by Lord Campbell, who dreamt of living to wear an SS collar in Westminster Hall whilst he was merely John Campbell the reporter; by Lord Brougham, who, having instructed our grandfathers with his pen, still remains upon the stage, giving their grandsons wise lessons with his tongue; and by Lord Romilly, whose services to English literature have won for him the grat.i.tude of scholars.

Of each generation of writers between the accession of Elizabeth and the present time, several of the most conspicuous names are either found on the rolls of the inns, or are closely a.s.sociated in the minds of students with the life of the law-colleges. Shakspeare's plays abound with testimony that he was no stranger in the legal inns, and the rich vein of legal lore and diction that runs through his writings has induced more judicious critics than Lord Campbell to conjecture that he may at some early time of his career have directed his mind to the study, if not the practice, of the law. Amongst Elizabethan writers who belonged to inns may be mentioned--George Ferrars, William Lambarde, Sir Henry Spelman, and that luckless pamphleteer John Stubbs, all of whom were members of Lincoln's Inn; Thomas Sackville, Francis Beaumont the Younger, and John Ferne, of the Inner Temple; Walter Raleigh, of the Middle Temple; Francis Bacon, Philip Sidney, George Gascoyne, and Francis Davison, of Gray's Inn. Sir John Denham, the poet, became a Lincoln's-Inn student in 1634; and Francis Quarles was a member of the same learned society. John Selden entered the Inner Temple in the second year of James I., where in due course he numbered, amongst his literary contemporaries,--William Browne, Croke, Oulde, Thomas Gardiner, Dynne, Edward Heywood, John Morgan, Augustus Caesar, Thomas Heygate, Thomas May, dramatist and translator of Lucan's 'Pharsalia,' William Rough and Rymer were members of Gray's Inn. Sir John David and Sir Simonds D'Ewes belonged to the Middle Temple. Ma.s.singer's dearest friends lived in the Inner Temple, of which society George Keate, the dramatist, and Butler's staunch supporter William Longueville, were members. Milton pa.s.sed the most jocund hours of his life in Gray's Inn, in which college Cleveland and the author of 'Hudibras' held the meetings of their club. Wycherley and Congreve, Aubrey and Narcissus Luttrell were Inns-of-Court men. In later periods we find Thomas Edwards, the critic; Murphy, the dramatic writer; James Mackintosh, Francis Hargrave, Bentham, Curran, Canning, at Lincoln's Inn. The poet Cowper was a barrister of the Temple. Amongst other Templars of the eighteenth century, with whose names the literature of their time is inseparably a.s.sociated, were Henry Fielding, Henry Brooke, Oliver Goldsmith, and Edmund Burke. Samuel Johnson resided both in Gray's Inn and the Temple, and his friend Boswell was an advocate of respectable ability as well as the best biographer on the roll of English writers.

The foregoing are but a few taken from hundreds of names that ill.u.s.trate the close union of Law and Literature in past times. To lengthen the list would but weary the reader; and no pains would make a perfect muster roll of all the literary lawyers and _legal litterateurs_ who either are still upon the stage, or have only lately pa.s.sed away. In their youth four well-known living novelists--Mr. William Harrison Ainsworth, Mr. Shirley Brooks, Mr. Charles d.i.c.kens, and Mr. Benjamin Disraeli--pa.s.sed some time in solicitors' offices. Mr. John Oxenford was articled to an attorney. Mr. Theodore Martin resembles the authors of 'The Rejected Addresses' in being a successful pract.i.tioner in the inferior branch of the law. Mr. Charles Henry Cooper was a successful solicitor. On turning over the leaves to that useful book, 'Men of the Time,' the reader finds mention made of the following men of letters and law--Sir Archibald Alison, Mr. Thomas Chisholm Anstey, Mr. William Edmonstone Aytoun, Mr. Philip James Bailey, Mr. J.N. Ball, Mr. Sergeant Peter Burke, Sir J.B. Burke, Mr. John Hill Burton, Mr. Hans Busk, Mr.

Isaac b.u.t.t, Mr. George Wingrove Cooke, Sir E.S. Creasy, Dr. Dasent, Mr.

John Thaddeus Delane, Mr. W. Hepworth Dixon, Mr. Commissioner Fonblanque, Mr. William Forsyth, Q.C., Mr. Edward Foss, Mr. William Carew Hazlitt, Mr. Thomas Hughes, Mr. Leone Levi, Mr. Lawrence Oliphant, Mr. Charles Reade, Mr. W. Stigant, Mr. Tom Taylor, Mr.

McCullagh Torrens, Mr. M.F. Tupper, Dr. Travers, Mr. Samuel Warren, and Mr. Charles Weld. Some of the gentlemen in this list are not merely nominal barristers, but are pract.i.tioners with an abundance of business.

Amongst those to whom the editor of 'Men of the Time' draws attention as 'Lawyers,' and who either are still rendering or have rendered good service to literature, occur the names of Sir William A'Beckett, Mr. W.

Adams, Dr. Anster, Sir Joseph Arnould, Sir George Bowyer, Sir John Coleridge, Mr. E. W. c.o.x, Mr. Wilson Gray, Mr. Justice Haliburton, Mr.

Thomas Lewin, Mr. Thomas E. May, Mr. J.G. Phillimore, Mr. James Fitz James Stephen, Mr. Vernon Harcourt, Mr. James Whiteside. Some of the distinguished men mentioned in this survey have already pa.s.sed to another world since the publication of the last edition of 'Men of the Time;' but their recorded connexion with literature as well as law no less serves to ill.u.s.trate an important feature of our social life. It is almost needless to remark that the names of many of our ablest anonymous writers do not appear in 'Men of the Time.'